Posts Tagged ‘CSS’

Writing front-end code often requires developers to address the problem of internationalization at some level. Despite the current standard, which introduces a bunch of new tags, simply adding support for different languages in a JavaScript plugin is still complicated. As a result, for any new project, you have to build a solution from scratch or adapt various existing APIs from other plugins that you use.

From a motion design perspective, Facebook.com is phenomenally static. It's purposefully dumbed down for the broadest levels of compatibility and user comfort. Facebook’s iOS apps, on the other hand, are fluid. They prioritize the design of motion; they feel like living, breathing apps.

This article serves to demonstrate that this dichotomy does not need to exist; websites can benefit from the same level of interactive and performant motion design found on mobile apps. Before diving into examples, let's first address why motion design is so beneficial.

Z-index is an inherently tricky thing, and maintaining z-index order in a complex layout is notoriously difficult. With different stacking orders and contexts, keeping track of them as their numbers increase can be hard — and once they start to spread across CSS files, forget about it! Because z-index can make or break a UI element’s visibility and usability, keeping your website’s UI in working order can be a delicate balance.

Because z-index is contextual, once you start using it, requiring it for other elements as well is easy. Finding z-index: 99999 rules scattered throughout a website is not uncommon, but the infamous99999was born of frustration. It’s an easy way to get an element just to be on top of everything else. But it’s not entirely scalable: What if you need to add something on top of that?

Not since the early days of web standards have I seen our community rally around a seemingly small issue: responsive images. Over the last four years (yeah, it’s been about four years), we’ve seen many permutations of images in responsive design.

From the lazier days of setting max-width: 100% (the absolute minimum you should be doing) to more full-featured JavaScript implementations, such as Picturefill and Zurb’s data-interchange method, we’ve spent a lot of time spinning our wheels, banging our heads and screaming at the wall. I’m happy to say that our tireless journey is coming to a close. The W3C and browser makers got the hint.

People of the world, strap yourself in and hold on tight, for you are about to experience truly hair-raising excitement as you get to grips with the intricacies of the hugely interesting CSS timing function!

OK, so the subject matter of this article probably hasn’t sent your blood racing, but all jokes aside, the timing function is a bit of a hidden gem when it comes to CSS animation, and you could well be surprised by just how much you can do with it.

Setting up JavaScript-based functionality to work across multiple devices can be tricky. When is the right time to load which script? Do your media queries matches tests, your geolocation popups tests and your viewport orientation tests provide the best possible results for your website? ConditionerJS will help you combine all of this contextual information to pinpoint the right moment to load the functionality you need.

Before we jump into the ConditionerJS demo, let’s quickly take a look at the Web and how it’s changing, because it’s this change that drove the development of ConditionerJS in the first place. In the meantime, think of it as a shampoo but also as an orchestra conductor; instead of giving cues to musicians, ConditionerJS tells your JavaScript when to act up and when to tune down a bit.

If you haven’t seen Joe Harrison’s responsive icons technique yet, you’ll most probably be impressed as much as I was when I first discovered it. In this article, I’d like to explore what we can do with SVG beyond “traditional” scalable vector graphics that are used to replace bitmap PNGs.

In fact, we can see SVG as an independent module that encapsulates CSS for the customization of views as well as the responsive behavior that also encapsulates JavaScript for the interaction logic. Now, let’s dig a bit deeper into this technique.

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